Essays on authors of the German Baroque period, defined in varied ways to include the expression of a worldview that stresses extremes, the formulation of tension between desires, the Counter-Reformation, and the art of courtly culture. Discusses the further developments of the genres of the first half of the seventeenth century, including lyric poetry, tragedies, school plays and novels.

A fresh examination of the role of the East in the German literary imagination, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present

Petrarch’s revival of the ancient practice of laureation in 1341 led to the laurel being conferred on poets throughout Europe in the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Within the Holy Roman Empire, Maximilian I conferred the title of Imperial Poet Laureate especially frequently, and later it was bestowed with unbridled liberality by Counts Palatine and university rectors too. This handbook identifies more than 1300 poets laureated within the Empire and adjacent territories between 1355 and 1804, giving (wherever possible) a sketch of their lives, a list of their published works, and a note of relevant scholarly literature. The introduction and various indexes provide a detailed account of a now largely forgotten but once significant literary-sociological phenomenon and illuminate literary networks in the Early Modern period. A supplementary Volume 5 of Poets Laureate in the Holy Roman Empire. A Bio-bibliographical Handbook will be published in June 2019.

Why did people argue about curiosity in France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, so much more than today? Why was curiosity a fashionable topic in early modern conduct manuals, university dissertations, scientific treatises, sermons, newspapers, novellas, plays, operas, ballets, poems, from Corneille to Diderot, from Johann Valentin Andreae to Gottlieb Spizel? Universities, churches, and other institutions invoked curiosity in order to regulate knowledge or behaviour, to establish who should try to know or do what, and under what circumstances. As well as investigating a crucial episode in the history of knowledge, this study makes a distinctive contribution to historiographical debates about the nature of 'concepts'. Curiosity was constantly reshaped by the uses of it. And yet, strangely, however much people contested what curiosity was, they often agreed that what they were disagreeing about was one and the same thing.

The history of this period in German literature is told through a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, a comprehensive bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on poetry, novels, historical narrative, philosophical musings, drama, and the exceptional writers who emerged and shaped German literature over the centuries.

This volume explores the impact of printing on the European theatre in the period 1480-1880 and shows that the printing press played a major part in the birth of modern theatre.

Modern Germany explores life, society, and history in this comprehensive thematic encyclopedia, spanning such topics as geography, pop culture, the media, and gender. Germany and its capital, Berlin, were the fulcrum of geopolitics in the twentieth century. After the Second World War, Germany was a divided nation. Many German citizens were born and educated and continued to work in eastern Germany (the former German Democratic Republic). This title in the Understanding Modern Nations series seeks to explain contemporary life and traditional culture through thematic encyclopedic entries. Themes in the book cover geography; history; politics and government; economy; religion and thought; social classes and ethnicity; gender, marriage, and sexuality; education; language; etiquette; literature and drama; art and architecture; music and dance; food; leisure and sports; and media and pop culture. Within each theme, short topical entries cover a wide array of key concepts and ideas, from LGBTQ issues in Germany to linguistic dialects to the ever-famous Oktoberfest. Geared specifically toward high school and undergraduate German students, readers interested in history and travel will find this book accessible and engaging.